For me I generally pirate most books I read, although if there is a book I really enjoyed I will buy the physical copy.

I also generally tend to avoid having takeaways because they are just so expensive in this day and age with inflation and tend to opt for cheap meals like pasta or rice etc.

Also I don’t pay for any streaming services, but borrow a VPN service from a friend to pirate the movies I watch.

Curious to hear of some ways that you people here save money.

  • Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz
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    10 months ago

    Learn to buy in bulk when it makes sense and learn to cook. You don’t need to eat rice and ramen (tho I do love me some…). Turkeys around Tgiving in the us are stupid cheap, pork butts smoke easily (you can even cheat and do them in a standard oven), and cheap beef makes great stew for less than $1/meal. Fish can be affordable too, if that’s your thing. It’s mostly about building a modest cabinet of spices and learning to turn simple foods into restaurant-level results. You’ll learn to prefer eating in because it’s literally better than paying someone else 5x as much for (honestly) mediocre food.

    I also plan ahead (like 8-12 months) and I take vacations based on what’s cheap and always travel off-peak. I traveled around the world for three weeks last year - Tokyo, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Prague, and Iceland - for $5k, including two flight segments in first class. Took my family of 3 to Lisbon, Dublin, and all over UK (Cardiff to Aberdeen) for two weeks this year for about the same total. And that was without using any CC points (which I do game from time to time, but I loathe manufactured spending). Neither of those are “cheap” trips, true, but I have friends who don’t plan and will complain that it’s “always” $1.5-2k each to fly us-eu.

    • PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt
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      10 months ago

      You don’t need to eat rice and ramen (tho I do love me some…). Turkeys around Tgiving in the us are stupid cheap, pork butts smoke easily (you can even cheat and do them in a standard oven), and cheap beef makes great stew for less than $1/meal. Fish can be affordable too, if that’s your thing.

      How come all your cheap alternatives to rice and ramen are corpse? Are those the only options for frugal people, to have rice and ramen or to be a murderer?

      • Nath@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        Rather than leaping straight to words like “corpse” and “murderer” for shock value, why not try a different approach?

        It would be possible to actually contribute to the conversation, recommending vegetable-based dishes that are cheap. You could even mention in passing that you prefer a plant-based diet without coming off as a cultish fruitcake.

        Can you suggest any other protein sources that are cheap for OP?

        • PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lib.lgbt
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          10 months ago

          I didn’t say murder is wrong. You said it. Because it’s what you really believe. You already know it’s wrong, you just don’t like thinking about the things you already believe.

          Beans, tofu, pumpkin seeds, broccoli.

      • Overzeetop@sopuli.xyz
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        10 months ago

        Sorry, I was thinking rice and beans and my mind went to protein sources. Yes, you can live vegan, and yes, you can get protein from non-animal sources. I think I originally noted that I bake nearly all my bread every week and it costs under a $1 for ingredients but decided not to keep it. If rice and beans are your jam, go for it.

        I like the muscles of dead things, a majority of my species also partake, and it’s usually one of the first things which is omitted due to cost - which doesn’t need to be the case if you are smart with which parts of the meaty flesh you gorge yourself on and when you are (financially) opportunistic enough to know when the less valuable animals are murdered for their soft flesh.